What makes Chetty's work groundbreaking?

Economist2c45

The topics he chooses are interesting. Mobility, race, inequality, equality of opportunity, but what makes his work groundbreaking? Is it his pioneering use of administrative datasets, the methodology, new findings no one knew before? Is his work overrated or underrated?

I saw his lecture too recently. Very interesting stuff. He found different neighborhoods have different income trajectories for children who grow up in them. But rent prices are basically uncorrelated with these trajectories. So you can improve someone's outcomes by moving them to a higher potential neighborhood with no increased housing cost. Of course this assumes that he has accurately identified this neighborhood effect. He kind of hand waved about the identification, and I had a few doubts about it.

I saw his lecture too recently. Very interesting stuff. He found different neighborhoods have different income trajectories for children who grow up in them. But rent prices are basically uncorrelated with these trajectories. So you can improve someone's outcomes by moving them to a higher potential neighborhood with no increased housing cost. Of course this assumes that he has accurately identified this neighborhood effect. He kind of hand waved about the identification, and I had a few doubts about it.

These “policy” implications are so retarded. What are you going to do, move millions of kids to the best neighborhoods? There’s no expanding this result on any meaningful scale. Like open borders people who insist that the US would be largely unchanged if tens of millions of immigrants showed up.

Meanwhile, the obvious improvements of shaming fathers into staying around, and mothers from having children out of wedlock, are nearly ignored since there’s a “simple” solution: just move to a better neighborhood!

Heckman extremely strong. Tbh I'm mostly used to thinking about Heckman as a kind of EJMR meme; it's trippy to watch his part of the discussion and be reminded of the full force of his intellect. Here he is at the age of 74 - when even many brilliant economists have long since become semi-senile deadwood - and he's just taking Raj apart. Totally lucid, sharp, aggressive, concise, insightful.